customers

The media wants overnight successes (so they have someone to tear down). Ignore them. Ignore the early adopter critics that never have enough to play with. Ignore your investors that want proven tactics and predictable instant results. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul. Because that's how long it's going to take, guys.

Seth Godin

Source: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue): http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/08/the-secret-of-t.html

If there’s one reason we have done better than of our peers in the Internet space over the last six years, it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience, and that really does matter, I think, in any business. It certainly matters online, where word of mouth is so very, very powerful.

Jeff Bezos

Source: Live With No Regrets - Jeff Bezos: http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog/2008/01/08/live-with-no-regrets-jeff-bezos/

Easier said than done, no doubt, but awareness is a start. That is, direct conversations away from "What is Microsoft doing?" ("What is the accountancy across the road doing?") And focus instead on, What new and cool things are we doing for our customers?

I think there's a need for somewhat of a mindset change. We need to have a consistent external focus. We've always had the research labs. We've always had the resources to be innovative, and we've been innovative in a number of businesses. But, in any big company, you have to constantly push people to look at markets and customers, rather than look internally at themselves.

An attitude that leaders serve customers first is especially vital to sustaining success. Employees are only empowered by serving customers. They’re not motivated by getting the stock price up, cutting the budget, or increasing the earnings. They don’t see tangible rewards from succeeding by those metrics, even if you make them shareholders. They get turned on about customers. In a Starbucks store, the barista gets excited about creating an environment that’s fun for the customer. I was at Starbucks earlier this morning and saw a barista greet a customer by saying, “Oh, Rick, nice to see you. Do you want the Rick special?” Rick comes there every morning because he has a relationship with that Starbucks employee.

Many companies operate from more of a command-and-control environment — they decide what's going to happen at headquarters and have the organization execute. That doesn't work here because it's the community of users who really have control.

So we enable, not direct. We think of our customers as people, not wallets. And that has implications for how we run the company. We partner with our customers and let them take the company where they think it's best utilized.

The fact that used cars is our largest category is a good example. We would not have sat in a conference room and said, "Hey, how about used cars?" So what can be learned that is extensible to other companies is [to ask] what are your customers doing with your products that maybe you didn't anticipate that they would do? How do you think of your customers as your research and development lab, as opposed to having an R&D lab at headquarters?

Meg Whitman

Source: Let the Customers Run the Company: http://www.smartmoney.com/smartmoney-magazine/ceo/index.cfm?story=august2005

I think one of the things people don't understand is we can build more shareholder value by lowering product prices than we can by trying to raise margins. It's a more patient approach, but we think it leads to a stronger, healthier company. It also serves customers much, much better.

I think technology advanced faster than anticipated. In that whirlwind, a lot of companies didn't survive. The reason we have done well is because, even in that whirlwind, we kept heads-down focused on the customers. All the metrics that we can track about customers have improved every year.